Neonatal outcomes of very preterm infants admitted to a tertiary center in Lithuania between the years 2003 and 2005.

The objectives of the study are to investigate gestational age-specific mortality and neonatal outcomes in preterm infants admitted to a tertiary center in Lithuania, and to make comparison with tertiary centers in western countries. Three hundred thirty-eight newborns born at ≤ 32 weeks of gestation and with birth weight ≤ 1,500 g between 1 January 2003 and 31 December 2005, admitted to the neonatal intensive care unit at Kaunas Medical University Hospital, were prospectively investigated. Mortality and associations between maternal, perinatal, and neonatal variables and short-term outcomes were examined for two gestational age (GA) groups (group I, extremely preterm, 22-27 weeks GA; group II, very preterm, 28-32 weeks GA). Mortality in group I was 53.5% and 2.9% in group II. GA <28 weeks, Apgar score <5 at 5 min, and birth weight <1,000 g posed the highest risk for death. Overall, 78.2% of the surviving infants were discharged from hospital without adverse short-term outcomes. The incidence of bronchopulmonary dysplasia (BPD) was 6.3%, of retinopathy of prematurity (ROP) requiring treatment 4.2%, of intraventricular hemorrhage (IVH) III-IV 10.9%, and for cystic periventricular leukomalacia (cPVL) 8.0%. In conclusion, a decade after introduction of perinatal programs, mortality in the very preterm group is similar to those reported from cohorts in western countries. In the extremely preterm group, however, mortality is still higher. Neonatal outcomes such as ROP are now similar, and BPD is lower to those in other cohorts, whereas the incidence of brain lesions is still higher. We speculate that differences in outcomes between studies may be explained by differences in resources, definitions, and treatment routines.